Sunday, January 04, 2009

I've been buying Lurpak since the Islamic boycott of Danish brands began after the Motoons shenanigans. Now that the General Guide (the what?) of the Muslim Brotherhood has called for a boycott of Israeli goods, I feel an urge to switch.

The founding Charter of Hamas claims land for reasons of religious supremacism (emphasis added):

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations, be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection. Who can presume to speak for all Islamic Generations to the Day of Resurrection? This is the status [of the land] in Islamic Shari’a, and it is similar to all lands conquered by Islam by force, and made thereby Waqf lands upon their conquest, for all generations of Muslims until the Day of Resurrection.

Once some territory - part of Spain, say - has been conquered by a Muslim army at any time in the past it must remain Muslim for all time. God says so. Women do not need the authorisation of their husbands to fight and even slaves must play their part. Authorisation...? Hang on. Slaves??? Yes, slaves:

... a woman must go out and fight the enemy even without her husband’s authorization, and a slave without his masters’ permission.

They have no interest in peace, just in conquest:

[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Hamas is at war with Israel because it chooses to be at war. It declared war. Israel has an absolute right, not to respond "proportionately" to rocket attacks, but to defeat its enemy.

The dead and dying Jihadis are victims of this disgusting ideology. Deceived by promises of celestial orgies, they are losing the only lives they'll ever have. The civilians, Israeli and Palestinian, caught in the fire are more so. Young Israeli soldiers - and it's always the young - are fighting through boobytrapped streets as I type. If I were religious, I'd pray for their safety. The blame, both consequential and moral, for this lies entirely with Hamas.

Their vision of the future is clear:

Safety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam...

The shadow of Islam is a very dark one. Israel's battle is also our battle.

11 comments:

You criticise Hamas's religion-based claim to Palestine, but the exact same thing can be said of the zionists, who claim God gave them that land. You choose to ignore this little fact, just as you ignore the large number of non-combatants Israel has killed.

So, in summary: Hamas kills an innocent Israeli - Hamas is to blame. Israeli troops kill an innocent Palestinian - Hamas is to blame... Right

No it can't. The same can be said of some religious zionists - the type who were dragged from their settlements in Gaza by the Israeli army. Israel is a secular state with no religious justification for its existence.

But Hamas is founded on a religious justification for conquest - the one I quoted. That's the government of Gaza. I cited the source and linked to it. Do the same for your suggestion that the secular state of Israel, the one whose government includes Arabs, makes a similar claim. It does not.

How on earth can Israel defend itself against an organisation that deliberately uses human shields and places its facilities in populated areas without there being civilian casualties?

If Israel were not trying as hard as possible to avoid civilian casualties there would have been far more.

If Hamas starts a war, as they have, then the moral responsibility for every death, civilian or military, is theirs, just as it was that of the Nazis in WWII.

If Hamas refuses a ceasefire, as they do, then the moral responsibility is theirs. If their very constitution refuses peace then the moral responsibility is theirs.

I have proved all these things are true.

It's also true that if Hamas had not been attacking Israeli civilians - deliberately targeting civilians, unlike the Israelis - then there would be no fighting now.

It is not acceptable either to kill or to try to kill Jews. You seem to feel otherwise, and that Israelis should simply sit while a genocidal neighbour tries everything it can to kill them.

There is a fundamental anti-Semitism, not anti-Zionism, in the idea that of all people in the world only the Jews should be passive while people murder them.

And there were a number of other points there, such as the idea you might stand up your previous assertion with some evidence. Or engage with my sourced proof that it is Hamas that acts with a religious justification.

I'm getting angry about this. I have often asked myself how I would have reacted had I been alive during the rising tide of Jew hatred of the 1930s. I never expected to have an opportunity to find out.

I used to see this issue exclusively from the Palestinian side. I read Fisk's Pity the Nation with tears in my eyes, when he wrote about Palestinians sitting in refugee camps clutching biscuit tins in which were British Mandate era house deeds and front door keys.

I spent hours talking with a Phalangist militiaman who had been present at the massacres in Lebanon, which he blamed entirely on the Israeli army.

Then I discovered he was lying.

My mind has been changed by the conduct of the Palestinians in Palestine, of the Israelis in Israel and by learning more of the history of the situation and of the reality of the present.

If the militias disarmed, Israel would back away. If Hamas stopped firing missiles, Israel would not have invaded. For crying out loud, Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza.

The only Islamic countries supporting Hamas right now are Iran and Syria which, by coincidence, pull the strings of Hamas and Hezbollah. The Saudis are studying their nails. Egypt blames Hamas for the fighting. Even Fatah blamed Hamas for the fighting.

And I speak about anti-Semitism and Jew hatred because it is only the Israelis who are expected to put up with being attacked without response. The state has fewer valid functions than many people assume nowadays, but the protection of its citizens against attack is one of them.

If you've read 'Pity the nation' you should realise that there ain't no good guys you can root for in this conflict - not the Phalange, not Islamic Amal, not the PFLP and not the IDF. This ain't a Gary Cooper western.

So, the Saudi government agrees with you? So what? Don't the 'Israel, right or wrong' crowd crow that Israel is the only democracy? Therefore if the undemocratic governments of their neighbours keep quiet, what does that prove? The people in those countries are most likely bitterly opposed to Israel's current police action.

"only the Israelis who are expected to put up with being attacked without response"

When have they not responded? They always respond and they always pay back with interest, and they always show disregard for civilian casualties - or 'human shields' as you term them.

It's a terrible business, and I don't pretend to have a solution, but what offends me is the callous glee so many of the pro-Israeli lobby show towards the deaths of Palestinians. I've read the long comment threads on blogs such as Old Holborn and there are plenty of people who just love the fact that people are dying right now.

If you expect the Palestinians to give up their guns in the face of Israel's dominant military might, you know nothing of human nature or history.

I accept that Hamas claim a divine right to the land, and I have pointed out that there are people on both sides who do this. Of the two claims, the muslim one is slightly more historically up-to-date (only 1400 years or so).

As you note above, there are other bases for Palestinian claims to land, which are far more recent: "British Mandate era house deeds and front door keys".